Landfall (The Reach, Book 2) (24 page)

“Skybreach isn’t a trap.  It’s the real deal.”

“That’s what you thought about the Candidate program,” Talia reminded him.

“If Skybreach was some sort of trap, why was Mattus still walking around perfectly fine almost six months after he joined?  Wouldn’t they have used him up and spat him out by then?”

“Maybe,” Knile said.  “But why do they want me?”

“Why
wouldn’t
they want you?” Roman said.  “You know everything about the Reach.  If they’re going to overthrow the Consortium
, they’re going to need people like you to give them the advantage.”

Knile turned to Talia.  “What do you think of this, Tal?”

She chewed her lip.  “I don’t know.  I mean, if it’s real, it sounds amazing.  Like Roman said, it could be the answer we’re looking for.”

“I think it’s worth the risk,” Roman said.  “Definitely.”

“Maybe we should wait to see how our other options pan out first before we go throwing ourselves at Skybreach,” Talia suggested.

“We can’t,” Knile said.  He activated the holophone again and the pinpricks of light on his forearm began to glow.  “The tattoo is fading.  It’s a temp.  By this time tomorrow it might be gone altogether, and then we won’t be able to follow the coordinates.”

“So write them down now before it fades,” Talia said.

“I’ve already memorised the coordinates that are here,” Knile said, turning his arm under the light.  “The problem is, they’re incomplete.  The final destination is an area the size of a city block.”

“So what good is that?” Roman said, disgusted.  “How are we supposed to find them?”

“I think I know,” Knile sai
d.  “They probably have a short-range beacon at their headquarters that sends out pulses at a certain frequency that will reveal the final coordinates within the tattoo.  So we have to get close before we can find that out.”

“And if we don’t make it within the reach of this beacon tomorrow?” Talia said.

“Then we lose it for good.  We can cross Skybreach off the list of options if that happens.”

“We can’t let this go,” Roman said, adamant.  “Please, guys.  We have to try.”

“But you’re saying they hand-
pick the people they want,” Talia said.  “What if Knile is the
only
one they want?”

“Then we walk,” Knile said.  “No question.  I’m not leaving you two behind.”

“So we go tomorrow morning,” Roman said.  “We go and check it out while we still can.”

Knile said nothing, gathering his thoughts as he looked about the room.  He glanced at Talia, but she only pressed her lips together and shook her head as if to say
don’t ask me
.

“We’ll see,” Knile said.  “We’ll discuss it again in the morning.  Right now we need to get some rest.”

“I’ll take first watch,” Roman said, stepping lightly over to the window, his fatigue seemingly forgotten.

“Yeah, okay.  Wake me in a few hours,” Knile said.

“You sure about this?” Talia whispered.  “We don’t know anything about these people.  Why should we trust them?”

“What he says makes sense,” Knile said.  “I don’t trust it one hundred percent either, but he’s right.  If it’s true, this is going to be our best chance of leaving together.  Maybe our only chance.  The complexities of organising three hacked passkeys at once is mind boggling.”

“If you think so,” Talia said, sounding unsure, but she seemed to be too tired to discuss it further, l
ying down on the bench in front of him and scooching back until her body was pressed against him.  “Mind if I steal some warmth?”

Surprised by her sudden proximity, Knile hesitated for a second before putting his arm around her waist and lying down next to her.

“Sure.”

“Just don’t try anything,” she teased.

“No chance.  I’ve seen what you do to men’s faces with those boots.”

Her body was warm and soft as she nestled against him.  Comforting.  He was suddenly glad that she’d chosen to sleep next to him.

Roman’s silhouette was still and watchful against the window as he looked down upon the street.  Knile closed his eyes.

As they lay there, he thought back to Gaslight, when the kid had planted the Skybreach tattoo on his arm.  He recalled her voice very clearly as she had stepped back and regarded him calmly.

It’s the only way out.

That was
all the kid had said.  Then she had disappeared, offering no explanation of what she meant.

Knile shifted slightly, hoping to find sleep, but a question still nagged at him.

The only way out of what?

23

Ursie awoke to the steady, muted thrum of Habitat Thirty-One, which
was quickly becoming the bane of her existence.  It was never quiet here, not completely at least.  She’d learned this much in the couple of days since she’d arrived.  The hum of the habitat’s inner workings, while not loud enough to stifle a conversation, nevertheless hung around at all times like an annoying burble that filled the void when all other sounds had ceased.

As she lay there trying to tell herself that it wasn’t a big deal, she wondered if the habitats in the outer colonies would present a similar situation, whether they would contain some small and yet annoying trait that was both ever-present and inescapable.

They better not.  I’ll go insane.

She pushed herself up from her modest cot and swung her legs over the edge, allowing her toes to touch the cool floor.  The quarters in which she and van Asch had taken
up
residence were small and somewhat cramped, but still far better than the squalor that had enveloped her during her life down on Earth.  Annoying noises or not, she really had nothing to complain about here.  It was paradise compared to what she had endured in the past.

She stood and took a few steps along the grey vinyl floor to where a large oval window looked out upon the stars.  Sometimes she could see the moon outside, but not right now.  For the moment there was nothing
to be seen
but stars, a seemingly infinite number of them, glimmering with a brilliance that was completely foreign to someone who had lived her life on the Earth’s surface under the veil of toxic skies.  To Ursie it seemed like someone had taken a new set of eyes and plugged them into her head, allowing her to see clearly for the first time.  The clarity of the stars and galaxies t
hat spun around Habitat Thirty-One was breathtaking.

This was easily her favourite place in the habitat that she had found so far.  She had literally stood before the window for hours on end, staring out into space and dreaming of what might be out
in the depths of space
.  Dreaming of her future.

Which one of those is Jupiter?
she thought, not for the first time. 
If I had a telescope, would I be able to see Callisto?  Would I be able to see my new home?

As she watched, one of the stars began to shimmer with greater intensity, and she immediately recognised it as another cruiser heading inward toward the habitat as it prepared to dock.  These craft came and went all day, delivering people and goods and who knew what else, growing larger and larger as they glided inward toward the habitat in arcing trajectories until they gently kissed the docking bays nearby.  Ursie enjoyed watching the tiny bursts of their thrusters glimmering in the darkness as they aligned themselves perfectly with the rotation of the habitat.  It was like a kind of intricate ballet, a dance that required the utmost precision.  After a time they would leave again, presumably loaded with new passengers, heading off to destinations unknown out in the system.

Soon it would be her turn to leave.  Callisto was waiting.

Maybe
, she thought glumly. 
Or maybe not.

She recalled van Asch’s words after he had met with the Consortium staff back on the concourse, and it sent a shiver down her spine.

Well
,
he’d said. 
I have some bad news.

A lot of possibilities had run through her mind at that moment. 
The company doesn’t want you after all.  They came to their senses, figured you were useless.  You’re going back down the Wire.

The words
bad news
really had encompassed an uncomfortable gamut of possibilities for her at that moment.

It had seemed like an age before van Asch had spoken again.

“It’s a temporary problem,” van Asch had eventually said.  “Nothing to be too concerned about.”

Ursie had watched him, wide-eyed.  It had taken all of her willpower not to go digging inside his head to figure out what he was thinking. 
But he’d been quite specific in requesting that she not use her abilities inside the habitat, so she clamped down on her thoughts and restrained herself.

It had not been easy.

“What is it?” she’d said.

“We hired a cruiser captain for this job, one who doesn’t always follow the rules.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because we needed someone at short notice,” van Asch had said. 
“Someone who was willing to for
go many of the formalities that a more disciplined captain would not.  It was all in the interests of getting to you at the right time, Ursie.  Collecting you from the Reach was the culmination of a long journey, and parts of that journey were rushed to ensure everything was done on time.”

“Okay.  I understand.”

“So,” van Asch had gone on, “our captain was supposed to stay docked here at Habitat Thirty-O
ne and wait for us to return.  After that, we would ship out to our final destination.  However, he didn’t wait.”

“What?  Where the hell is he?”

“He took a job delivering cargo to one of the moon habitats.  After that, he’s assured us that he will return here.”

“So for now we’re stranded?”

“Yes.  For the time being.”

Ursie had been furious.  “Is he even allowed to do that?”

“Technically no, but his unpredictability and disregard for the rules, the same qualities that landed him the job in the first place, have now resulted in this delay.  It would be hypocritical to complain.”

“So how long do we have to wait?”

“Forty-eight, perhaps seventy-two hours.”

“And what do we do until then?”

Van Asch had smiled thinly.  “We wait.”

After that he had led her to these stuffy little quarters located in a remote corner of the habitat, and here she had remained.  She felt somewhat trapped and claustrophobic in these cramped confines, surrounded by the beautiful yet cold and inhospitable depths of space, but she was also concerned about what would happen should she wander about the habitat and inadvertently reach out with her abilities to the wrong person, alerting an outsider to her presence.  Van Asch would
be displeased if that were to happen, perhaps enough to sever ties with her completely and send her back down the Wire.

She glanced across the room to where van Asch was seated at the little round kitchen table.  Ursie had begun to wonder if the guy ever slept.  He was never in his cot by the side of the room, preferring to rest at the table instead.  He would sit there for hours on end, his head dipped forward, his aviator sunglasses still in place, as if he had fallen asleep while playing a game of solitaire.

All in all, Jodocus van Asch had been nice to her, she supposed, but he was still a bit of an odd fish.  His mannerisms were stiff and he projected an air of restraint, of control.  Perhaps it was a cultural thing, a type of behaviour that was common out in the colonies, but it was not something she was accustomed to down on Earth.

“Are you well rested?” he said suddenly, raising his head.  He did not turn to look at her, but instead continued to stare straight ahead.

“Oh!” she said, startled.  She lifted a hand to her breast.  “Yes.  Thank you.”

“Good.  That is at least one positive we can take away from this postponement, yes?”

“I guess so.  How much longer, do you think?”

“Perhaps twenty-four hours.”

“Okay.”  She moved away from the window.  “I’m sure I can make it that long.”

“Are you hungry?”

Ursie sat at the table across from him and he finally shifted his face in her direction.

“What am I going to be doing for you?” she said, ignoring the question.  “What am I doing for the company?”

The question had been burning inside her for
some time now, long before she had stepped on the railcar at the bottom of the Wire, and to this point van Asch had given away little about what her future held.  She decided that now was as good a time as any to start asking these kinds of questions.

He paused as he considered.  “How much do you know about the Outworlds?” he said.